ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ethics of impression management (IM) behavior and whereas prior IM research has focused on how such behavior can have organizational costs by politicizing the workplace use an ethics lens to understand how IM can harm other individuals. The chapter draws upon three moral theories to clarify when IM may be unethical or harmful. The Jones and Pittman's taxonomy of IM tactics and discuss specific ways in which five different types of IM behavior, ingratiation, self-promotion, exemplification, intimidation, and supplication, may damage the well-being of others in organizations. The chapter addresses the practical implications of our analysis by explaining why understanding unethical and harmful IM is important for managers and administrators. It have sought to understand how a variety of IM behaviors could be unethical because of the damage they inflict on the well-being of others and described how IM can, at times, be unethical because of the harm it causes to the well-being of other employees.
